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Tarnished Earth: the destruction of Canada’s boreal forest

Tarnished Earth is a dramatic street gallery of photographs telling the story of the destruction of Canada’s boreal forest – a continuous belt of coniferous trees separating the tundra to the north and temperate rainforest and deciduous woodlands to the south. The exhibition, which is being staged by The Co-operative, in conjunction with WWF-UK and Greenpeace, and will later tour cities across the UK, shows how the boreal forest is being flattened by the rush to extract oil from the tar sands just below its surface.

A ‘bituman’ scarecrow designed to keep migratory birds from landing in the toxic sludge at the tailings pond of the Syncrude upgrader plant north of Fort McMurray. Behind the haunting figure, smoke plumes rise up out of the plant Photograph: Jiri Rezac/Greenpeace